


Searching

by fandomfrolics



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Captain America Vol. 5 (2005), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 17:36:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8904703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandomfrolics/pseuds/fandomfrolics
Summary: Tony is doing all he can to help Steve find his recently-returned-from-the-dead friend Bucky Barnes. Everyone seems to notice but Steve. Canon divergence from Captain America Vol 5 #14.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lets_call_me_Lily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lets_call_me_Lily/gifts).



> This is set right after Ed Brubaker's Captain America: Winter Soldier storyline, particularly Captain America Vol 5 #14. There's a quick recap in the end notes if you need it.
> 
> Time jumps in the fic are marked as number of days since Bucky disappeared.
> 
> Happy holidays Lets_call_me_Lily! Hope you like it!!

T + 2 Days

“Tony, you need to get some rest. You know how the board are. The last thing we need is for them to think there’s something going on with you.”

“They always think something’s going on with me.”

“Well, ninety percent of the time they’re right! But this does not have to be on of those times, so please will you just take a break.”

“I promise it’s not going to interfere with Stark Enterprises’ business Pepper, but this is something I need to do.”

“No, it really isn’t. This isn’t sustainable. Nighttime is for _rest_ , not for hunting down assassins who may or may not be alive.”

No answer. She sighs, seeing that Tony’s decided he’s done with the conversation. All she can do now is hope _this_ obsession ends quick.

\--

T + 6 Days

_[Outgoing message: Sam Wilson @11:26am] How’s he doing?_

_[Incoming message: Sam Wilson @11:29am] A wreck, though he’s doing a hell of a job hiding it_

_[Incoming message: Sam Wilson @11:37am] Found anything?_

_[Outgoing message: Sam Wilson @11:41am] No_

_[Outgoing message: Sam Wilson @11:42am] Not yet_

_[Outgoing message: Sam Wilson @11:42am] Working on it_

_[Incoming message: Sam Wilson @11:43am] All good, just checking. Thanks for all your help with this. I’m sure Steve really appreciates it._

_[Outgoing message: Sam Wilson @11:44am] It’s the least I can do_

\--

T + 18 Days

“Tony. Tones.”

Tony grunts once to acknowledge Rhodey’s presence but doesn’t look up from his computer.

Rhodey strides into the room and stands next to Tony, peering at the information scrolling across the screen.

“Those reports have to be nothing more than gibberish by now.” He turned gaze on Tony. “You need to take a break. If nothing else, the fresh eyes will help.”

Tony taps at the keyboard and the screen is abruptly filled with a map, lines of all colors spidering across it. “I’m close,” Tony mutters, fingertips skating over the screen, “I know I am. I have to be. He can’t just be _gone_ , people don’t just _disappear_ , Cosmic Cube or no. I just have to--”

Rhodey rests a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Tones, I told you. There’s nothing you could have done. Falcon says so, Sharon Carter says so, hell even _Steve_ says so.”

Tony’s hands still. The absence of the keyboard clacking is jarring in its sudden silence. “I should have been there. Screw the board, screw accusations of corporate warfare, I’m his _friend_ and I should have been there for him.”

No argument was going to work today. “Alright, Tony. I get it, okay? But _please_ , just remember, you’ve got friends too, alright?”

\--

T + 42 Days

“Tony, what is this?”

He glances up at the papers being brandished in his face but they’re moving too fast for him to decipher.

“You’re going to have to give me some context here, Pep.”

“Since when does R&D have a prosthetics division?”

Ah. He lays his pen down deliberately and folds his hands over the report he’d been looking over. “I thought we needed to do something to help our veterans, since our government doesn’t seem to feel the same way. The care they get is atrocious.”

Pepper just gives him a look.

Tony throws his hands up. “What do you want from me? It’s good for the company, it’s good for the people – seems like a win-win to me!”

“And this has nothing to do with the fact that Captain America’s best friend, who, by the way, is currently presumed dead, was last seen with a metal arm?”

Tony narrows his eyes at her. “What are you really trying to ask me?”

“I just want you to be careful! You’re pouring too much of yourself into this. People are starting to notice.”

“Okay,” Tony sighs. “I’m sorry, you’re right. I’ll take it down a notch. Or several,” he amends at Pepper’s look.

\--

T + 48 Days

_[Incoming message: Steve Rogers @6:56 pm] Any updates?_

_[Outgoing message: Steve Rogers @7:41 pm] Nothing substantial and nothing you haven’t seen already_

_[Incoming message: Steve Rogers @7:44 pm] Okay_

_[Outgoing message: Steve Rogers @7:45 pm] Sorry. [Failed to send. Retry?]_

\--

T + 67 Days

“You should have told me!”

“It’s _my_ money, Pepper, I don’t see why I would need to report every expense to you.”

“This isn’t just a pair of shoes or a new suit, Tony! This is millions of dollars, wasted!”

“It’s not wasted, I’m getting closer—“

“Does Steve know you’re doing this? What on Earth did he say to you to make you do all this, because this is ridiculous! You can’t throw away half of your personal fortune chasing a ghost!”

“He didn’t say anything to me, alright? I’m just trying to help out a friend.”

“This is much more than that, Tony, and you know it and everyone else knows it too.”

\--

T + 94 Days

“Thanks for lunch, Tony.”

“My pleasure, Steve. Thanks for the suggestion, I’m glad we did this.”

“Didn’t realize how spoiled I was, with the Avengers, in getting to see you so often. And our lives are both so hectic nowadays that this seemed like the easiest option.”

“SHIELD does seem to be doing their best to keep you busy.”

Steve chuckles humorlessly. “I suppose that’s one way of putting it.” He pushes to his feet, stretching his hands over his head. “God, I’m stuffed.”

“That’s a first,” Tony says dryly.

Steve laughs. He wanders away from Tony’s desk, trying to get his blood moving after the heavy meal.

Tony’s office is ever-changing and always fascinating and the man himself never seems to mind answering Steve’s questions, no matter how mundane and dull they must be to him.

He’s examining some new gadget sitting on the bookshelf when something blinking on one of the monitors catches his eye. “Hey, what’s this?” He tilts his head, stepping closer to it. A map of the continental United States fills the screen, with winking dots scattered throughout. The locations of the markers seemed familiar somehow. He looks to the monitor to the left, where scanned reports filled the screen. His gaze had skipped over it earlier, assuming it was Stark Enterprises business and not wanting to pry, but a second longer look now told him they are, in fact, intelligence reports. More specifically, intelligence reports about one particular person.

Steve’s eyes grow wide as skims one, then the next.

He whirls around only to find Tony studiously avoiding his eye. “Tony?” he says. “What is this?”

“It’s exactly what it looks like, Steve,” Tony replies, poking through the remains of his salad.

“You’re still looking for Bucky?” Steve asks, stunned.

“Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Steve comes back to his chair and sinks down into it, boneless. “I just thought – I mean, everyone else seems to think he’s gone. I just figured…” He doesn’t know what he figured, really. Certainly not this.

Tony sets down his fork. “Do you think that?” he asks, meeting his gaze with an unreadable expression. “That he’s gone?”

Steve’s chest tightens. Of course the thought has crossed his mind – more than crossed his mind. It's like a tentacled monster, trying to grab hold of his brain any chance Steve lets down his guard. But he can't let it – Bucky _needs_ him to keep looking and Steve isn't about to let him down, not again.

He swallows hard. “I don’t want to,”

Tony looks and looks and looks at him and Steve looks back, wondering what the other man is searching for, what’s whirring through his head.

“What do _you_ think?” Steve finally asks when Tony has nothing else forthcoming. “I mean, you’ve kept searching for him these past three months. There must have been something that compelled you.”

Tony laughs but it’s a strange gravely sound, not the deep-throated chuckle Steve is used to, the one that always warms him from the inside to hear.

“I think that you need him to not be gone,” Tony says bluntly and Steve can’t help but flinch. Tony picks up his fork again. He ducks his head and skewers a piece of lettuce. “And I think that that’s reason enough to keep trying.”

Steve doesn’t quite know what to say that. The words make him feel vaguely like he should be affronted, like he’s being humored for believing something impossible. The way Tony says it though just leaves him with an odd sense of comfort.

He opts out of a verbal reply and reaches over to fish out a piece of apple from Tony’s salad instead. He pops it in his mouth while Tony watches, his cheek propped on his fist, chewing on his own bite.

“Thought you said you were stuffed,” Tony intones.

Steve shrugged. “I was. Now I’m not.”

Tony just shakes his head and laughs.

\--

T + 96 Days

“Hey Sam,” Steve starts, breaking the silence on their patrol, “did you know Tony’s still looking for Bucky?”

Sam’s head snaps around. He gives him an incredulous look. “Are you kidding me?”

“I know, right? I thought everyone else had written him off.”

‘No, not— _you_. Are you— you’re kidding me right?”

“What’re you talking about?”

“Did I know— of course I knew Tony’s still looking for Bucky! Everyone knows! He spends every spare hour, every damn spare dollar he _has_ on it! Called in favors all over the country. Hell, last I’d heard he had a team just working on the tracking we used to trace the Cosmic Cube’s signature in the first place. Something about how if Barnes had used it the way we think it may have left a lingering trace on him. Seems a bit of a stretch to me but what do I know—“

“Wait, hang on. _Tony’s_ been doing all this? Why would he— he doesn’t even know Bucky.”

Sam is giving him that look again.

\--

T + 96 Days

“Steve! What’re you doing here? Did we have a meeting?”

Steve ignores Tony, striding straight up to the screens he’d seen the other day. He examines the data on them more closely this time, swiping at the screen to scroll through all the information. There’s a section dedicated to reports of sightings, along with detailed investigations into every one, no matter how farfetched they seem. Another swipe brings him to a page of security camera captures, with stills of the Winter Soldier’s face from different angles pinned to the corner for reference. He pauses here a long moment, trying to find the person he knew in the pixelated images. There’s only so much Tony’s enhancement algorithms can do though.

He swipes again.

“Tony,” he breathes. The screen is filled with one large image – a blueprint, it seems, for an arm, though the details scrawled over the top promise it to be so much more than that. “What— ”

“’s nothing,” Tony says from just behind him and Steve jumps. He turns around to find Tony’d come over at some point, watching over Steve’s shoulder as Steve processed the sheer amount of information Tony had fine-tooth combed through in the last three months. “Just trying some stuff out.”

“Trying some— you actually made this?”

“Not that one in particular,” Tony replies. “Not yet.”

Steve turns back to the blueprint and sees there’s a ‘ver. VIII’ printed neatly in the corner. Tony’s on the _eighth_ prototype of an arm for someone they hadn’t even confirmed alive yet.

“I don’t understand,” Steve says.

“Like I said, you believe he’s coming back.” He shrugs. “So I do too.”

“That’s not what you said.” Tony raises an eyebrow at him. “You said I _needed_ to believe he’s coming back.”

Tony stares silently at him, seemingly fighting an internal battle over his next words.

“I can’t stand seeing you like this,” he says finally, quiet.

“Like what?” Steve asks.

“Like you’ve lost a war you never fought. Like a piece of you is missing. And if I can do anything to help make it go away, to make you _you_ again, well…” He throws his hands out, palms up. “I know it’s nothing, it’s not nearly enough. _Especially_ when I refused to go with you to the Kronas facility but I—”

Steve claps a hand over his mouth. It takes Tony a second to realize what’s happened and his last few words bounce garbled against Steve’s palm.

“Tony,” Steve whispers. “I’m going to try something, okay? Something that may have been a long time coming.” Tony, looking utterly bewildered, just nods.

Steve slides his hand down, away from Tony’s mouth, and rests it on the back of Tony’s neck instead. He takes a final step forward so there’s scarcely an inch between them, scanning Tony’s expression for any hint that this is entirely the wrong move. Tony’s eyes have fluttered close, his eyebrows raised in such an open gesture of hope that Steve pauses for a moment, drinking in the rare sight and studiously committing it to memory.

Then he ducks his head and presses his lips against Tony’s, ever so gently.

Tony’s gaping at him in wonder when he pulls away.

“I guess everyone was right,” Steve says. His heart is thumping hard in his chest. Tony’s pulse beneath his hand seems to indicate the same.

“About what?” Tony replies hoarsely.

“Everything,” Steve says and leans down and kisses him again.

**Author's Note:**

> A quick recap - Tony helped Steve pinpoint Bucky's location, though he can't go along to help because the location is owned by a rival and and he's afraid he'll get thrown out of his own company for corporate warfare. Falcon, Steve, and Sharon Carter go and find Bucky and the Cosmic Cube at the location. Steve uses the Cosmic Cube to bring Bucky's memories back but Bucky tells Steve he should've just killed him instead. He does something with the Cosmic Cube that makes his disappear, leaving his fate unknown to the others.


End file.
